


paper thin (they say it always ends like this)

by Red (S_Hylor)



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Angst, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Prostitution, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 10:35:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Hylor/pseuds/Red
Summary: He was Icarus and Tony was the sun.





	paper thin (they say it always ends like this)

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as an attempt to write friends with benefits getting together and was meant to be for my Happy Steve Bingo. 
> 
> Somehow, instead, it accidentally drowned in the angst creek (I didn't even push it in, it just dove in without even checking the depth first and cracked its head on the bottom), and turned into hooker Steve hopelessly pining over Tony. 
> 
> I'm not even sorry. 
> 
> Instead I'm using it for Stony Bingo Round Two, for the square "resolve".
> 
> Thanks to [quandong_crumble](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble) for the beta work. 
> 
> Title from the song Paper Thing by Dream On, Dreamer. Check it out.

The bedroom is awash with early morning light when Steve carefully wriggles his way out of the bed and tiptoes across the expanse of floor towards the bathroom door. The bed’s other occupant gives a sleepy grumble and rolls over, leaving his back, endless tanned skin stretched over muscle, on display that Steve has to work at to tear his eyes away from. A back that he’d clung to the night before, fingertips slotted against shoulder blades, trying to hang on, to anchor himself, otherwise he’d felt like he’d fly right out of his own skin. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more alive than he did pressed between Tony Stark and his ridiculously expensive feeling sheets.

Every time was the same. He felt alive, felt like he was flying, soaring and spiralling, getting higher and higher. 

Closer to the sun. 

He knew the tale of Icarus. He knew what would happen if he got too close. 

How the fall would kill him. 

It hadn’t stopped him though. Hadn’t stopped him coming home with Tony again and again, letting him peel him out of his clothes, lay him bare. 

He wants, more than anything, to crawl back into the bed, to press himself into the space between Tony’s arms, against his chest, and to stay there until the sun is high in the sky and he's started to turn sticky with warmth. Though he doubts Tony’s bedroom would ever get too warm, even with the full summer sun. He suspects that it's always just perfect. 

He’s never stayed long enough to find out. 

Because this is how it goes. Tony picks him up, brings him home, fucks him, and then he leaves. Once Tony’s asleep, once Tony’s left to go wherever he goes after sex. When he wakes up early, long before Tony surfaces. 

He leaves, always leaves, never stays, and usually it doesn’t bother him. He never used to care. Used to look forward to leaving, to getting back to his own space, to wash off the remnants of the night before, the memories of the things he'd done or let be done to him. 

It didn’t bother him until Tony.  

Until Tony started picking him up, looking at him, touching him, kissing him like he meant something. Like he was somehow special. 

Until it hurt every time he pockets the money that Tony hands him. Until the hollow, empty space inside him stopped feeling numb and started aching. 

He has to close himself in the bathroom, shut the door between him and Tony, to stop himself from just crawling back into the bed and begging to stay there. He knows he can’t do that. Knows he shouldn't want to. Tony’s just a client. 

Catching his reflection in the mirror he holds his own gaze, reminds himself firmly that this is the lot he carved for himself in life, that he has to deal with it. He can't waste time wishing on fairy tale endings that are never going to happen. 

The man in the mirror that stares back at him is nearly a stranger. Someone he doesn't know anymore. 

He used to know who he was. Sarah’s son. Bucky’s friend. Art student. But his ma and Bucky are gone, and he no longer knows why he even bothers going to classes. Just keeps making expenses he has to work harder to afford. 

There’s a red patch on the side of his neck, tender from being scraped by Tony’s beard. A purple bruise gnawed into the junction of his shoulder and neck, another on the point of his collar bone. He presses his fingers into them, tries not to think about the way he’d writhed on the bed when Tony had sucked them into his skin, not having to fake his reactions. 

He never had to fake anything when it came to Tony. Other than his own disinterest. It was getting harder though, to pretend his heart didn’t ache every time he left. 

He knows he should stop coming to Tony’s. Should sever all ties, should stop this before it gets out of control. Before he loses himself entirely to the fantasy. Before he forgets that he’s just a hooker, that he doesn’t actually mean anything to Tony other than a good time and a way to get off. 

He’d been warned at the beginning. Told not to get attached to anyone. To treat everything like a business transaction. To never forget his place. 

It was just easy to forget when Tony bought him dinner, smiled at him, kissed him. 

He was Icarus and Tony was the sun. 

It was only a matter of time before his wings melt and there’s nothing but the fall back down to earth. 

He’s aching, physically and emotionally, when he finally forces himself to look away from the mirror, to turn towards the shower. He knows he’s only rubbing salt into his own wounds when he washes himself clean with Tony’s body wash, when he lets the fantasy linger longer. He doesn’t stop though. 

When he finishes showering, steps out to dry himself off, he can’t stop himself pressing his nose to his skin, soaking up the scent that he’s come to associate with Tony, and he knows he’s a lost cause. 

He’s already crashed back down to earth, lying broken and bleeding, dying on the ground, he just hasn’t realised it yet. 


End file.
